Sunday, October 20, 2024


Claire’s Corner-My Father’s last name in German means Oatmeal

  

·         How to celebrate Oct 20th

o   You can start your day by lacing up for a fun run. Whether you’re a running pro or just starting out, participating in a local marathon can be a refreshing and energizing way to begin your day.

§  Next, embrace your inner child by grabbing a toy camera and exploring the world through a different lens. Get creative and capture everyday moments from a unique perspective.

·         After that, take some time to boost your confidence and uplift others by writing kind notes to the young people in your life or volunteering to mentor a youth organization.

·         Then, show appreciation for the educators in your community by celebrating Sunday School Teacher Appreciation Day. Consider sending a heartfelt message, creating a small gift, or simply spending time in gratitude for the impact they have.

o   Harness the power of suspenders to add a touch of whimsy to your outfit and spread joy to those around you.

§  Dive into the art of writing on the National Day of Writing, whether it’s journaling, writing a letter to a loved one, or starting that novel you’ve always dreamed of.

o   Embrace health awareness by learning about osteoporosis on World Osteoporosis Day. Take simple steps to improve your bone health, like incorporating more calcium-rich foods into your diet or going for a brisk walk.

§  Celebrate the voices in your community on Community Media Day by supporting local journalism or starting a conversation about issues that matter to you.

·         Channel your inner chef on International Chefs Day by trying out a new recipe or treating yourself to a delicious meal.

o   Indulge in a sweet treat on Office Chocolate Day by sharing a box of chocolates with your coworkers or surprising a friend with their favorite chocolatey delight.

§  Get crafty on National Brandied Fruit Day by experimenting with making your own brandied fruits or trying out a new recipe.

·         Finally, take a moment to unplug and unwind on Information Overload Day by disconnecting from technology and enjoying some quality time with loved ones or diving into a good book.


OCTOBER 20 Sunday

ST IRENE

 

1 Chronicles, Chapter 16, Verse 25

For great is the LORD and highly to be praised; to be FEARED above all gods. 

What is the meaning of above all gods? 

Do we as moderns have gods? 

Have we like the ancient Baal worshipers cheapened life (abortion, contraception, etc.) and offered our children to the fire? 

Have we engaged in ritual hedonism? 

Have we place creation before the creator? 

Don’t Worship Mother Nature[1]


Our old dog eats deer poop. The neighborhood cats stalk, torture, and kill our chipmunks. The spider whose web I see in front of my window stings the butterfly caught in his web, wraps it with silk, and later comes back to eat it alive. Your knee hurts. Your eyes begin to go. Cancer cells eat up the body of your closest friend. The earth shifts suddenly, and flattens part of a crowded island, and thousands and thousands die. There’s nature for you. It is sometimes only disgusting, like the dietary habits of our aging mutt. It’s sometimes just annoying, like your aching knee and fuzzy vision. But it is also cold, brutal, and merciless.

Nature is entirely selfish and utterly amoral. It doesn’t care about anyone’s pain. It’s soaked in the blood of the innocent. And yet some people say that we ought to abandon the religions we have, like Catholicism, and worship nature instead. The Church is corrupt, they say, and obsessed with sex, and full of rules, and run by old men, and medieval, antiquated, and completely out of step with the modern world.

But nature is cool. It’s natural, for heaven’s sake. We hear this all the time. Writing on the website of a serious English magazine, someone calling himself (or herself) “Pagan Artist” wrote in a cheerful Mary Poppins kind of way:

“What is wrong with worshipping God’s creation itself?

The sun, the moon, the stars, the air, the trees, the rivers, the sea — we cannot live for a day without them. He then explained why this made him want to worship nature and reject the god of any established religion: “For me, that makes them divine because they give us the ultimate gift of life. Organized religions on the other hand have given us nothing but death and destruction. Nature gives us life. Organized religions give us death.

Which one should we hold divine and worship with reverence?”

Let us set aside the claim that “organized religions” have given the world lots of bad things and no good things. It’s just silly. Walk around any major city and note the number of hospitals with names like “Mercy Hospital” and “Our Lady of . . .” and “Beth Israel.” The modern hospital come from the medical care dispensed freely by the monks of the Middle Ages. Note how many missions go around the world to feed the poor, build homes, and give them health care when they’re sick.

Remember those missionaries who got Ebola because they kept helping people at the risk of their lives?

They’re not unusual.

Look at the modern pagan’s case at its best. It claims that we ought to reverence nature because it gives us life, as Pagan Artist said. You can easily think of all sorts of wonderful things to be found in Nature with a capital “N.” The Christian would say that the wonderful things we find are wonderful gifts given us by a loving God but let that go for a second. The first thing to be said about this modern nature worship is that it is very, very dim. Dumb, even. Sure, we find in nature pretty sunsets, cute little bunnies and kittens, warm sunny breezy spring days, and the awe-inspiring mechanics of life on earth and the equally awe-inspiring movement of the stars and galaxies. But we also find physical decay, cancer, earthquakes. Those cute kittens grow up to eat cute bunnies. The weather that produces the beautiful spring days will also produce killing cold snaps and hurricanes that destroy everything in their path. The mechanics of life on earth produce death as much as life, and indeed depend on death to maintain the balance.

What is to you a horrible death from cancer is for Nature simply a way of adjusting the population. I don’t know why anyone would want to worship this. The real pagans worshiped nature because it could kill them. They wanted to try to make Nature like them and spare them its worst. It was a bully they had to pretend to like. That’s not worship as we understand it. It’s bribery, and desperate bribery at that. Some of the ancient pagan religions would do almost anything to bribe the nature gods, including sacrificing their own children.

Think for a moment what fear men would have to feel to toss their own infant children into a furnace. That is how frightened of nature were the people who knew it best. Not for them the cheery “Nature gives us life” and the chipper question,

“What is wrong with worshipping God’s creation itself?”

That’s the talk of someone who lives far removed from nature, in a modern city in a modern house with modern heat and modern plumbing, with modern medicine and everything else that protects us from nature as she really is. If he really met mother nature, he wouldn’t like her. As my grandmother said about a bad man she knew, he’d crush just as soon as look at you.

ON KEEPING THE LORD'S DAY HOLY[2]

CHAPTER I

DIES DOMINI

The Celebration of the Creator's Work

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Gn 1:1)

9. The poetic style of the Genesis story conveys well the awe which people feel before the immensity of creation and the resulting sense of adoration of the One who brought all things into being from nothing. It is a story of intense religious significance, a hymn to the Creator of the universe, pointing to him as the only Lord in the face of recurring temptations to divinize the world itself. At the same time, it is a hymn to the goodness of creation, all fashioned by the mighty and merciful hand of God.

"God saw that it was good" (Gn 1:10,12, etc.). Punctuating the story as it does, this refrain sheds a positive light upon every element of the universe and reveals the secret for a proper understanding of it and for its eventual regeneration: the world is good insofar as it remains tied to its origin and, after being disfigured by sin, it is again made good when, with the help of grace, it returns to the One who made it. It is clear that this process directly concerns not inanimate objects and animals but human beings, who have been endowed with the incomparable gift and risk of freedom. Immediately after the creation stories, the Bible highlights the dramatic contrast between the grandeur of man, created in the image and likeness of God, and the fall of man, which unleashes on the world the darkness of sin and death (cf. Gn 3).

Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost[3]

 

The focus of this Sunday is we must render to God what is God's: meaning that we must give ourselves up entirely to Him, so that He will recognize us on the Last Day. 

 

GOSPEL. Matt, xxii. 15-21[4] 


At that time, the Pharisees going consulted among themselves how to ensnare Jesus in His speech. And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that Thou art a true speaker, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest Thou for any man: for Thou dost not regard the person of men. 

Tell us, therefore, what dost Thou think, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? 

But Jesus, knowing their wickedness, said: Why do you tempt Me, ye hypocrites? 

    Show Me the coin of the tribute. And they offered Him a penny. And Jesus saith to them: 

Whose image and inscription is this? 

    They say to Him: Caesar’s. Then He saith to them: tender therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. 

Who are hypocrites? 

    Those who, in order to deceive their neighbors, show themselves outwardly pious, while within they are full of evil dispositions and malice; who have honey on the tongue, but gall in the heart; who, like scorpions, sting when one least expects it. Such men are cursed by God (Mai. i. 14). The Lord hateth a mouth with a double tongue (Prov. viii. 13). 

See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him, upon those who hope for his kindness, to deliver them from death and preserve them in spite of famine. 


Saint Irene[5]


 

Irene, a beautiful and chaste Portuguese girl, was murdered before she reached the age of 20. "An assiduous pupil and a devout believer, the only times she ever left her house was to attend mass or to pray in the sanctuary dedicated to Saint Peter on his feast-day. A young nobleman named Britald happened to see her on one of these rare outings and fell desperately in love with her. Every time that she went out, he waited to catch a glimpse of her, followed her to church, and eventually made his suit known to her; however, Irene gave him to understand that she would never marry him. "Thus rejected, Britald fell into a deep depression and became so ill that the doctors who were called in to tend him gave him up for lost. Hearing of this, Irene visited him and told him that she had refused him because she was no longer free, having already taken a vow of virginity.

 

Britald at once accepted her decision and gradually recovered his health. Before Irene left him, he had sworn that he would respect, and make others respect, her vocation as a holy virgin, and the two had parted like brother and sister, promising each other that they would meet again in Paradise. “Irene returned home and resumed the life of seclusion and study, intending to make her entrance into a convent before long. But the monk who was giving her private lessons proved to be a lecherous scoundrel and behaved towards her in a manner as dishonorable as Britald's was honorable. “Irene repulsed him and had him dismissed at once; but his lust turning to a desire for revenge, the monk then began to spread slanderous rumors about her. To those who asked him why he was no longer giving the girl her private lessons, he replied that he had left on learning that she was about to become a mother.

 

This rumor quickly circulated throughout the town and at length reached Britald who, being frank and trusting and unused to lies, believed what he was told. In a passion of rage and jealousy, he hired a mercenary soldier to kill her. Soon afterwards, as she was returning home from visiting an old man who was crippled, the assassin approached her from behind and killed her with a single stroke of his sword. “Her body, which was thrown into the river, was later retrieved by some Benedictines on the banks of the Tagus, near the town of Scalabris. They gave her a proper burial, made known her story, and not long afterwards, so great was the veneration in which she was held, the name of the town of Scalabis was changed to Santarem (Saint Irene)" (verbatim from Encyclopedia).

 

Santarem in Portuguese means “Saint Irene”, patron of the city. In the Church of St. Irene, we can find the Miraculous Crucifix of Monteiraz. Church documents relates that the Body of our Lord became alive (like the Miracle of Limpias), Jesus’ arm came down from the crucifix and embraced a small shepherd girl of the time of the Eucharistic Miracle. The crucifix belonged to a community of the 12 Benedictine monks (Abby of 12 apostles) is from the XII century, it is still venerated today.

 

Visit this link (http://www.piercedhearts.org/treasures/eucharistic_miracles/santarem.htm) to learn more about the Eucharistic Miracle.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Day 129

IN BRIEF

934 "Among the Christian faithful by divine institution there exist in the Church sacred ministers, who are also called clerics in law, and other Christian faithful who are also called laity." In both groups there are those Christian faithful who, professing the evangelical counsels, are consecrated to God and so serve the Church's saving mission (cf. CIC, can. 207 # 1, 2).

935 To proclaim the faith and to plant his reign, Christ sends his apostles and their successors. He gives them a share in his own mission. From him they receive the power to act in his person.

936 The Lord made St. Peter the visible foundation of his Church. He entrusted the keys of the Church to him. the bishop of the Church of Rome, successor to St. Peter, is "head of the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church on earth" (CIC, can. 331).

937 The Pope enjoys, by divine institution, "supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls" (CD 2).

938 The Bishops, established by the Holy Spirit, succeed the apostles. They are "the visible source and foundation of unity in their own particular Churches" (LG 23).

939 Helped by the priests, their co-workers, and by the deacons, the bishops have the duty of authentically teaching the faith, celebrating divine worship, above all the Eucharist, and guiding their Churches as true pastors. Their responsibility also includes concern for all the Churches, with and under the Pope.

940 "The characteristic of the lay state being a life led in the midst of the world and of secular affairs, lay people are called by God to make of their apostolate, through the vigor of their Christian spirit, a leaven in the world" (AA 2 # 2).

941 Lay people share in Christ's priesthood: ever more united with him, they exhibit the grace of Baptism and Confirmation in all dimensions of their personal family, social and ecclesial lives, and so fulfill the call to holiness addressed to all the baptized.

942 By virtue of their prophetic mission, lay people "are called . . . to be witnesses to Christ in all circumstances and at the very heart of the community of mankind" (GS 43 # 4).

943 By virtue of their kingly mission, lay people have the power to uproot the rule of sin within themselves and in the world, by their self-denial and holiness of life (cf. LG 36).

944 The life consecrated to God is characterized by the public profession of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in a stable state of life recognized by the Church.

945 Already destined for him through Baptism, the person who surrenders himself to the God he loves above all else thereby consecrates himself more intimately to God's service and to the good of the whole Church.

Daily Devotions

·         Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them in fasting: Today's Fast: Reparations for offenses and blasphemies against God and the Blessed Virgin Mary

·         Today in honor of the Holy Trinity do the Divine Office giving your day to God. To honor God REST: no shopping after 6 pm Saturday till Monday. Don’t forget the internet.

·         Religion in the Home for Preschool: October

·         Litany of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus

·         Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus

·         Drops of Christ’s Blood

·         Universal Man Plan

·         Rosary

 






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